Skippy to Steve: “I am your father!”

…and so goes Steve: Into the vast darkness of the world of the janitor. Soon he will be embraced and mentored by the best of the dark custodial artists: Skippy the Angry Janitor! What turned Skippy to the dark side, you ask? More than likely it was Gil’s smug dickishness towards the service industry:

“The kid is taking out my empties. Must have family problems…Mom on crack? Molesting uncle? Who knows…But whatever it is, he’s clearly a failure like Skippy. And none of it’s my fault this time!”
“Will you stop talking when I’m trying to seduce you?”
“Hey babe, this empty aint removing itself. Can you take care of it like a good wife, or do I need to call Steve over here?”

Speaking of  something unrelated:

“Hey Cassie, you fell asleep mid-coitus again, so I went and dyed my hair blond.”
“Coitus?”
“It’s what we mature folks in the pizza-flipping industry call ‘banging a minor’. It sounds less skeezy that way.”

“Custodian to the Stars”, coming this spring on E!

“I caught on doing this at the elementary school, and now I’m custodian to the stars.”

Today’s post is simply this: A plea to you to explain what the hell this means. Is it supposed to be a joke? If so, can you explain it? I’m throwing my hands up on this one as much as the characters are apparently.

Who can set your line-up? The garbage man can!

Steve: As I have no knowledge of these players you’re discussing…I’ve never even seen them play, I’d like to offer my two cents on your starting line-up!
Gil: Well, I was thinking the same thing as you. And I’ve seen them play as much as you have. Say, would you like to be head coach? I’m far too busy not giving a crap. And Kaz can’t do it…he’s got both his hands stuck in my drawer again.
Steve: Nah, I’d much rather be the janitor than a high school coach at this dump of a school. I make six times as much as you do and I was hired only three hours ago! (Milford public education: It’s fantastic!) Now let me just take out this trashcan of horrible transcripts and extra freak hands and I’ll be on my way.
Kaz: What’s a “trans-cript“?
Gil: OK, fine, Kaz…you can be head coach this season. Just be sure to punch your way out of the desk by the first game tip-off. I think that’s in March.

Return of the Helmet!

12/24/09

What’s that I said about updating more frequently? Oops, that was before I remembered the holidays were coming up, meaning nobody ever does anything useful for a couple weeks. At least we learned on Christmas Eve that Cassie was not in fact secretly dating Gil, but a deadbeat 22-year-old pizza flipper. (You can tell he’s a deadbeat ’cause of that Dylan Bauza soul-patch thing.) Despite the awkward expositional dialogue, this is sorta close to promising as far as plot set-up goes, I guess. But no time to discuss further, because it’s just about time for….

12/25/09

…the annual Thorp Christmas greeting! Last year this was the only proof that the Thorp children still existed. But this year, thanks to their notable absence (and Gil and Mimi seeming particularly happy to have the house to themselves), I’m convinced that over the summer they sold their offspring to Marty DeJong for a couple of six packs and a bag of crack.

12/26/09

Do you think December 26th is the least-read comic day of the year? Perhaps Neal does, as Gil and Kaz pondering their line-up for three straight panels is even more boring than a usual daily episode. And Gil clearly hates us if his plan is to feature the two annoying characters of Jam-Jar and Bryce as starters over the probably extremely boring Micah and Paul. Annoying is worse than boring, right? Luckily something slightly interesting is about to happen…

12/28/09

…Another blast from the past, Steve Luhm! Steve pre-dates this blog, but only by a short bit…The two things I recall about Steve from his high school years were his enormous hair helmet (sweeeeet!), and the fact that he clocked a guy dressed as a hobo during a basketball game. (Presumably to stand up for homeless teammate Ted Pearse, but maybe secretly because he was deathly afraid of hobos.) I imagine he has to constantly hold his neck steady…Now that the giant hair helmet is gone, it’s thrown his entire head off-balance.

I’m ignoring the nonsensical dialogue and pretending that instead they’re discussing the upcoming hobo-punching tournament that has brought Steve back to town.

Everyone here should be committed

Panel 1: Boring
Panel 2: I think Mimi is smothering one of her never-seen children under a blanket.
Panel 3: Is this happening about 3 seconds before some good old-fashioned Ralph Kramden-style domestic violence? Let’s hope the commitment is for the boyfriend, to our favorite North Carolina prison.

The small and the big of it all

“No, Jam-Jar! Don’t dribble on my head while I’m passed out on the floor. Think like a point guard. More specifically, think like Muggsy Bogues and grow six inches already! Gawd, if you’re our strength, I’m gonna need to lie back down again.”

While with the girls:

“Look at these bigs, Cassie. Then, look at the tall players over there. When they’re not all involved with covering up Nutboy capers or wearing cardboard bikinis, they play pretty good ball. We don’t need you there. We need you here between these bigs! Gil’s too piss drunk to notice ‘em…might as well get some action at school, right? Also, what do you think of our new practice jerseys? We made ‘em out of old fishing nets.”

Three half-man, half-dogs together in one strip!

12/19/09

Wow…what a shocker! Who knew Deion was a lesbian…er wait, I mean Valerie and Deion were identical twin sisters, only Valerie got a sex change? I can’t seem to put my thoughts into words, so as my stomach churns nauseously while reading this, I’ll just say it in pictures:

Apparently Barf has the last word on the football season, because…

12/21/09

…we’ve entered a time warp! In the past we would at least kinda  get a wrap up on the story lines AND be told that the sport o’ the season had ended with the Milford Mudlarks pathetically losing. But this time, out of the blue, all the old crap gets dropped, as we learn that basketball practice has been “rolling along,” with players in S&M outfits being clobbered by other players pausing in mid-air to receive accolades from Gil? WTF?

I originally wrote a long rant against Neal Rubin for his inability to tell interesting stories that started and finished in reasonable about of time. Then it dawned on me, if he’s not wasting time writing, why the hell should I? So moving forward, I will do better to mirror the strip…The crappiness of Gil Thorp will be met head on with my shorter (and I swear I’ll try) more frequent snark. Bring it on Neal. I mean, how much worse can you get?

What a moustache-whitening twist!

12/15/09

Yep, I wanted to wait ’til something happened before I posted again. Despite football “action” here, I don’t see anything happening yet. Two drunk fans trying to start the wave while everyone else dozes doesn’t count.

12/16/09

Gil still there with four minutes to play? Yeah, that’s definitely unusual (maybe he locked his keys in his car?) but it’s still nothing happening. Jam-Jar running away from Jesus in panel three? Yep, that’s getting closer to something that’s something. Wake me when he gets caught.

12/17/09

Hey, instead of showing the winning play, we get to witness the other players pick Jam-Jar up, no doubt to deposit him in the nearest dumpster for egotistical jerks who refer to themselves in the third person. Not surprisingly, said dumpster is also Marty Moon’s home. The two egotistical jerks jaw off, though Marty with his greater years of jerky experience, causes Jam-Jar to slowly melt.

The melting off of his outer layer has caused li’l Jammie to forget about the fact that his man-crush on that Amazon dude Valerie, was well, crushed by that Amazon dude Valerie, and so he’s off to try his luck again. Looks like something is on the verge of happening….!

12/18/09

Whoah…who’s far-too-detailed crotch might that be? Well, if we were to be boringly predictable, it would have to be Deion Brand, band geek (TM)! So I’ll be shocked if that isn’t the case. However, at least for today, we can hold out hope it’s someone more ridiculous…As already suggested, perhaps the elusive Mr. Bakst? Tiger Woods? Clambake? My guess for a better twist: Valerie’s creepily too-proud father! Whoever it is, it’s turned Jam-Jar’s bizarre moustache-upper-lip thingie from black to white! Stay tuned, fans of band geeks with far-too-detailed crotches…Tomorrow should be your day!